There is a belief shared by many psychics that we choose our parents before we are born. The thinking goes that we decide on the parents we do because of the lessons we will gain by being their children. For example, you might select abusive parents so that you can have empathy for other people that were raised by abusive parents, or because you want to have the opportunity to develop empathy for abusive parents, or perhaps to gain empathy for abused children because in a previous lifetime you were yourself an abusive parent.
The belief that we choose the parents that we are born to is often extended to the belief that we also chose the major events, relationships and trials we will encounter in life for the lessons they will teach us. We picked the parents we did not only for what we will learn or experience directly through them, but because of the life experiences and lessons that will follow from this particular entry point into the world. So, for example, the selection of education-oriented and wealthy parents may help assure your own advanced formal education so that you may attend medical school, become a doctor and have the life experience of being a healer.
There are some constructive aspects to the idea that we choose our own parents. This perspective promotes a learning stance towards the events that come our way in life while at the same time discouraging a victim identity when bad things happen to us. It encourages us to take some responsibility for our negative life events and to search for something positive in them—something we can we can learn about ourselves or life. Thus, it directs our minds towards the lessons to be gained as opposed to viewing life as a nonsensical, random series of events with no deeper cause or purpose behind them. Rather than promoting resentment, anger, or a victim stance towards hurtful events, it encourages us to find the good and take some accountability for what comes our way. It thus promotes a more forgiving, learning attitude towards the pain and disappointments we will inevitably encounter.
While I fully support a learning, forgiving and accepting attitude in life, I do not go along with the idea that we choose our parents and major life experiences before birth. I believe that such a viewpoint assigns too much wisdom, power and authority to the ego. If our conscious mind has so much insight into what we need to learn and all of the experiences we need to have in the coming life, we might ask why we need to have the experiences in the first place.
When you enter a math class in school you don’t hand the teacher a syllabus on what you want covered in the course. You don’t tell the instructor to be sure to give special attention to certain concepts or mathematical formula that you somehow know ahead of time are going to be difficult for you. Rather, the teacher directs the class and creates the syllabus because he/she knows the subject, knows what needs to be taught, and knows the best way to sequence and communicate the material. I believe that in life, even more so than in a math class, we do not know what we need to learn, even before birth.
Some psychics, acknowledging this issue, modify the basic premise by stating that when we choose our parents we do so under the supervision or guidance of guardian angels who may over-rule our preferences based upon their greater insight into our spiritual growth needs. Certain psychics even suggest that this may be why many babies cry and scream upon birth—they didn’t want the life their guardian angels prevailed upon them. But, of course, this explanation only supports the idea that our parents are chosen not by us, but through a wisdom and intelligence that transcends our own.
[Author’s note: I do believe that every life has a purpose, and contains a “curriculum” of lessons to promote our spiritual and psychological growth. I simply maintain that this purpose and curriculum comes from a source of wisdom and love that far transcends the very limited awareness of our ego, which is no more equivalent to God before birth than it is after birth.]